My journey to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. This is my journal in bits and pieces of what led me to BJJ. Hope you enjoy.
JUDO
Having studied Judo under Sensei Nori Bunasawa as a small child of about 6 or 7 years old, I developed an appreciation for the discipline he brought into my life. A short, Japanese man, Nori Bunasawa, at first was strange to me, being a white child in Orange County, California back in the 70’s who had never really met anyone with a foreign accent, let alone, wearing a Bruce Lee martial arts suit.
You see, I had begged my mom, who was estranged from my father at the time, to let me take “Karate.” (Of course back then, we Americans pretty much thought it was all the same. Karate, Kung Fu, etc., all the same.)
So my mom signed me up for Judo at CC Lambert school in Tustin. I remember Sensei always made us meditate and stretch both before and after class at the “Do Jo”. I remember the rolls and throws, and drills and Sensei sometimes had an arrow that he would slap to the mat to get our attention. You see, we were all just a bunch of little kids.
In any event, I was upset that I could not fly through the air and strike/kick my opponent like in the Bruce Lee movies. But Sensei assured me and others that Judo was a superior martial art. I did one competition as a yellow against an orange belt. It resulted in a stalemate.
It was pretty cool having mom and my mates there at the community center. In all events, this was the first step of my journey to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
OKINAWAN KARATE
After moving away, Judo ended for me and my father enrolled me in Okinawan Karate. That lasted about 6 months. I learned horse stance and striking and kicking, but we moved again.
MUAY THAI
Back living with mom, my mom enrolled me at the YMCA for this new martial art in the states that supposedly billed itself as having the most powerful kick in the world. We wore karate gis, and learned a mild version of Thai Kick Boxing. This had to have been circa 1978-79.
INTERVAL
There was an interval of several years where I no longer trained at a do jo, but instead would work the heavy bags, stretch, and lift weights. But that was it till the Marines.
MARINE MARTIAL ARTS
As a Marine, we learned the “line” fighting techniques. Honestly, we did not spend enough time to really learn much. Nope, Marines had a long way to go before their stand up would be as good as their battlefield “tool box.”
BOXING 1
After that, I learned basic boxing techniques for a year and then trained along doing heavy bags and shadow boxing after that. I would always combine kicks I had learned in Muay Thai with my boxing.
UFC CHANGES EVERYTHING
Right around this time, I heard that the UFC Jiu Jitsu guy, a Brasilian, Royce Gracie (pronounced “Hoyce” – Portugese), was choking out guys much larger than him. Then it all clicked right there. Sensei Nori had been right. Ground fighting is the best. But I had noticed that Royce also utilized strikes and kicks. This was traditionally a no no for Japanese Jiu Jitsu. But not for the Brasilians.
I was working 9-12 hour days in sales and paralegal fields and pretty much just lifted weights when I could after that. This went on till:
BOXING 2
So after getting married, finishing law school and five years in a successful law practice, I was burned out on lifting weights, under a lot of pressure, gaining weight, 40 years old, and needing the feeling I had when I was young; of combat and battle. Martial arts were calling me again, but I also wanted to lose weight and improve my cardio. A pro boxer at my gym suggested I train with him.
I did, and lost a lot of weight and really sharpened my “American” boxing skills.
BRAZILIAN JIU JITSU
I really wanted to get into Jits during that period. I had to make a choice. With a law practice and family to feed, I had to choose between MMA, or straight Jiu Jitsu. So finally, I just said, screw it. At my wife’s urging, I enrolled at Rey Diogo Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. This guy is a world champion from Brasil and was the best I could find.
A former Army Ranger who trains there confirmed this. He drives from San Diego to Los Angeles just to train with him. It was further verified by an Austrian and several Englishmen who came to California just to train with Rey. They had the choice of traveling to Brasil and training at the BJJ Mecca there.
And boy was that a wake up call. I was promoted with my first stripe in less than three months. This was also new. Most martial arts go from belt to belt. To be continued.
This is one of the greatest movies about Marines in Vietnam. U.S. Marines save a U.S. Army firebase during a major NVA/Vietminh Offensive. Although it is fiction, there are many instances in history of the Marines rescuing beleaguered Army units from WWII to Korea, Nam and even the current wars. Here, R. Lee Ermey (The Gunny – Ooohrah) rescues a bunch of lazy regular army soldiers. Chesty would be proud!
I just love watching R. Lee Ermey being himself. You gotta watch this movie if you like Marines, war movies and bad asses in the genre of John Wayne.
The Gunny.
In Siege of Firebase Gloria, the “Gunny” is part of a United States Marine Corps. RECON unit. A few Marines go into the U.S. Army firebase, find a few decent army soldiers who love America, and train, and fight with them to defeat the Vietnamese commies. Great flick. I give it a full ooohra!
Does this photo of President Obama in the Oval Office convey anything to you about his attitude?
Would you speak with the Chief of Staff, your Chief Economics Adviser, and your Senior Adviser with your feet up on the Resolute Desk – a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880?
Today there are many businesses that would not be able to survive without doing and knowing about search engine optimization. A lot of people are now using the web to find local products and services because of the deals they can find online. Without using search engine optimization a business might not get anywhere as to one who uses it might succeed. Listed below are ways that people can drive local traffic to their website and increase the sales.
Example of a Google Local 10 Pack:
Google Local 10 Pack
How To Use A Directory And List A Website
If you are first getting started with search engine optimization then chances are you may or may not know why people use local directories. People look to directories because it is a way of helping to promote their business. Google is a directory, but there are also smaller ones all over the net. When adding a listing you can include a variety of things such as: ways for people to contact the company, the details about the company, services that the company provides, the website address, and the a way to contact the company if they want further details. People can find that there are directories with Yahoo Local Business, Google Local Business Center, Small Business Directory for people in the UK, and Bing also uses directories. The yellow pages is another directory that many often forget about these days. Below are the links to the some of the directories listed above.
Using a video for promotion is a great way to get noticed and more so if it is put out on websites like YouTube. Google Local actually allows you to upload your videos into your Google Local profile for ease of use for end users.
Google Local Video Example
If the video is great then it can drive more traffic because people would want to click and find out what the website is all about. Using things like descriptions, keywords, titles and links can help draw in the visitors to view the video. Most computers come with software already installed to allow people to create and make their own video for free.
Youtube has a lot of tutorials on their website that show people how to upload them. There are many things that can be added to videos such as testimonials and reviews from the customer’s. The reason why YouTube videos are important is because they’ll come up on search engines when people are looking for something and that is why having the right keywords can drive in more traffic.
Using Ad Campaigns Near You
While this might be a old tool that people have used for generations it still can really help a business get sales. There are many who might not want to spend more money with promotion. However, there are ways to go about it without spending a lot such as just using school paper and handing out fliers in the neighborhood. Using a catchy logo is another way to get people’s attention on a flier when doing ad campaigns.
If a business starts using these three tips and strategies with search engine optimization the rate for them to succeed increases by 95% percent. People around the local area talk; and when they hear of such deals going on by the ad campaigns plus with looking online the business is bound to get more traffic and visitors coming in because of that and that is why search engine optimization is very vital to a business.
When owning a website it is important to know what Google PageRank is, and what it does. Pages of sites on the web have numeric values to them and those values make a huge difference with how a page might “rank” with Google. PageRank, or “PR” is a method Google uses to assign how much trust they give your website, and/or its individual pages. Google uses a voting system. PR is arranged in your Google Toolbar as a green meter. If your run your mouse cursor over the Toolbar, you will see a numeric of 1 all the way to ten, otherwise it is concealed and all you will see if the green, or in some cases, white, or clear bar. Typically, if the PR bar is green, but tiny green, and to the left, it is a PR 1-3. PR 4-10 gets darker green as the PR numeric value increases. So a PR 10 will be solid green. See below example:
PR2:
PageRank 2
PR7:
Example of a PR7 Value
When someone “votes” for a website’s content by providing a “backlink”, this gives it a higher PR rating and thus, the PageRank goes up. A vote is typically cast, when a “do follow” site provides a link on their site, pointing back to your website. This is called a “backlink”. So if I put a link on my website with your url (your web address), and it points back to a page on your site that I like (maybe one of your child pages has an article I like?), that counts as a vote because I backlinked to your site.
If the page on my site that I place your link on has a high PR, then it will pass higher PR to your page and thus, that page will be viewed by Google as a more trustworthy source. If the rating is low, then it wont increase as much. When a page has just one PR7 vote from a high PR site – for example a home page link on the Matt Cutts Blog above – that PR7 backlink may be viewed as very valuable by Google. It may take hundreds or even thousands of backlinks from PR2 and PR3 sites to get the same PR boost to your site.
But Google tweaks the PR algo (“algorithm”) constantly. (With the advent of social media and Google Buzz, my theory is that traffic to your site is becoming more significant a rating factor than mere number or PR value of backlinks.) That is why staying up to date with the latest rules with PageRanking is a vital part of your task as a webmaster. If a website owner does not stay up to date they could get a penalty, or simply grow stale in the eyes of Google, without knowing and understanding why. Many people look at a sites PageRank because they can then tell if a site or page matters or not. Having a high PagePank with Google is not as easy as it sounds, assuming you even think it sounds easy. Buying backlinks will get you wiped out by Google. But your competitors making false, and unfounded reports to Google that you are buying back-links may hurt you just as bad. There are sites that Google can penalize for a variety of reasons.
In all events, the Google Toolbar PageRank alerts people by telling them what a website’s current PageRank was since the last Toolbar update. If a person lands on a page that is listed 0 with the toolbar then that means they do not have a high PR listing and may have a long way to go before reaching PR number one with the Google Search Engine. Typically, a website that is number one on the Search Engine Results Positioning will have a higher PR than those that position lower. But that is not always the case.
The Google Toolbar is not updated often. As a matter of fact, it is updated perhaps less than five times every single year. The last update the Google Toolbar had, was on February 13 & 14th, 2010. This gives website owners enough time to add in content to their websites that might be valuable and to promote their site so when the next update happens they might have a chance to make the PR toolbar greener. During that time of waiting, the owners would still need to research and study the rules of Google to make sure that they have not changed anything.
One downfall about the Google Toolbar PangeRank value, is that sometimes it can be spoofed; or given a false ranking. This is because it can be manipulated by people like hackers, who want people to think their site has high PR. That way, they can try and sell backlinks to webmasters from a “high PR site”. Get it?
This is nothing new to Google and they consider this a bug with the current toolbar. That said, Google has been working hard on trying to patch up the bug so people cannot cheat other people out with the system. Google keeps a close watch on webmasters who try to do this and Google has warned them not do it.
There are some who don’t like using the toolbar because they feel it is not the same as it once was and the PageRanks can bounce all over the place. What seems to matter these days is how pages on a website are linked. If they are linked and have unique content then it should be easy to get good PageRankings without having to use or depend on updates with the toolbar.
Website owners should only be focused on getting to the top of Google the right way and not worry too much over what one of the Toolbars say or do not say. Keep on indexing new, informative pages, and keep on promoting the way you should and in the end, it’ll pay off. Remember, the green toolbar is just one of many factors Google looks at when assigning the positioning of your site in the SERPS.
Content is king so don’t chase PR. Let PR chase your content. If you have great content, people at sites like Amplify and Digg will vote for you. You can get great, trustworthy backlinks from high PR sites with good articles, news and blogs. Good luck!
In my search for things that make Twitter useful, I have come across a pretty cool interface that allows you to quickly list things for free on Twitter, which then blasts them to users all over the tweeterverse. It is called “Tweetmart”.
As you all know, the internet is used for lots of things such as: finding jobs, selling products, and for other reasons. People spend hours trying to find sites that allow them to do this. Thanks to the advanced technology today and social network sites like Twitter there is now Twitter classified ads.
Tweetmart Services Page
What are Twitter Classified Ads? It is part of a site called Tweetmart that allows people to search for jobs on Twitter. Not only can jobs be found this way but people are allowed to post jobs. This helps both parties out. After finding a job that the person might like then they contact the person that posted the job and ask them any questions plus find out more information about the job before they decide if that is the job that they really want.
Tweetmart Items for Sale Page
Twitter Classified Ads are free and it does not cost anything to search for a job. Other sites you might have to pay a fee for searching but this site you don’t have to. You do not even need a PayPal account but some of the ones hiring might like for you to have one if it is jobs to do with online work.
It is not only free for the person searching for a job but it is also free to the ones wanting to post a job. The only thing is that they might be limited on how many words they can put out about the job but they can always put in a link with more information about that job. There are lots of reasons why you would want to post something about the job on another site. You can answer the questions needed and fill them in with all of the information that they might need to know that you cannot get into the Twitter post.
How do you join in on Twitter Classified Ads? You must first open up a free account with Twitter. After you open up your account with Twitter then you post your job or search whatever is that you are looking for on www.tweetmart.com. Once your job is posted everyone that is on your friends list at Twitterer gets notified of your job posting, as well as everyone subscribed to the tweetmart app. You can also search and see if someone else is job searching for the job that you just listed.
With so many people looking for jobs right now this is a great chance for them to find one in their area or either find a job online that they would be good at doing. If you are looking for a job you can always post your skills on your Twitter profile. This might help you if the ones needing to hire people are searching and your profile might come up because of your skills listed on your profile.
You can also upload a picture of your item, get a free do follow link back, and it stays up for 30 days, as opposed to seven (7) days like Craigslist. I give a perfect 10 user review to tweetmart and hope you have fun checking it out too!
February 16, 2010 (by Horatio Algren) According to reports there have been more reports of deaths that might be related to sudden acceleration defects.
According to reports the U.S. Government officials have stated there are now 34 Toyota deaths that have occurred since 2000 that could be possibly related to sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles. During the past three weeks there have been complaints received in 13 deaths that could allegedly be connected with the Toyota vehicles acceleration problem.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has also had a dramatic increase in their database in the past week or two with it complaints concerning the Toyota Prius hybrid since the recall was issued.
In the past four months Toyota Motor Corp has issued recalls totaling 8.5 million of their vehicles globally because of problems with floor mats, accelerator pedals and brake issues.
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